A former Google UK salesman claims to have a massive stash of around 100,000 emails sent and received during his time at the company, which supposedly prove the tech giant has been fiddling its tax returns to artificially lower its stated UK earnings.

Barney Jones worked for Google UK between 2002 and 2006. His main claim is that his emails prove UK Google staff negotiated deals with UK companies in UK offices, with the money paid into UK bank accounts -- only these deals were "booked" through the Irish business to lower the UK earnings figures. That's a pretty damning claim.

It would appear to be a similar bending of the rules to that used by Amazon, which reportedly shovels most of its earnings off to sunny Luxembourg despite employing numerous sales staff in the UK.

Google, which has previously claimed its presence here is aiding our entire economy, said: "it is difficult to respond fully to documents we have not seen," adding that "None of the allegations put to us change the fact that Google pays the corporate tax due on its UK activities and complies fully with UK law."